


Jigsaw Falling Into Place

by StainedGlassDreams



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: BuckyNat week, F/M, Love, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Memory, buckynat - Freeform, winterwidow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 01:56:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10401150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StainedGlassDreams/pseuds/StainedGlassDreams
Summary: Loose ends are something she hates. Amidst everything, it's one thing she cannot afford.And the fact there's multiple ends missing, means she has to take a detour to find them.





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to FuckYeahBuckyNatasha's amazing annual Buckynat Week, with art from Miranda Leiggi :)
> 
> Huge Thanks to Miranda and as always FYBN! :)  
> Hope you enjoy and as always, TY for reading ❤

She rests, her mind and eyes still in over work.

Whenever she does, it's like she's floating.  
The dream starts with her in Moscow. Back in the old days, when everything was command. Repeat. Fight for your humanity. Whatever was left of it, anyway.

She remembers sparring. She dreams a million dreams like these, except this is different.  
This feels like a dance, as if her and her partner are speaking.  
Every punch and kick has something behind it.

She wakes up smiling, before it's quickly replaced with a grimace.  
You don't ever stop remembering. That's the problem. Your mind is always going to dig back up something you forgot, and add another burden to the pile you can never pay back.  
The thing that annoys her the most, however, the one thing that gets under her skin, is forgetting. She thought she was over it.  
And yet, her fingers remember a touch she can't recall who to, and the taste of someone that's irreplaceable.

But she can't remember who.  
And that's what bothers her the most.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art from Miranda Leiggi for this chapter can be found here :)  
> http://mirandaleiggi.tumblr.com/post/158685223302/this-is-for-the-bucky-nat-minibang-i-tried-to

Natasha walks through the streets, bubblegum popped on her lips, her brunette wig at a bob.

The best way to disguise yourself, is to appear to wear nothing.  
Be an everyday person.

Which she agreed with.

Walked with a hop in her step.

It's just that this particular alias was mentally annoying.

Natasha neared the coffee shop, turning into it as she lowered her sunglasses.

Nat took the coffee to the back, waiting on her contact.  
She was growing tired of confusion, this unrelenting itch in the back of her brain that told her she was forgetting something, something important.

He puts the pearls around her neck, taking his time.  
"[We don't have all day, loverboy.]"  
He clips it to the ring, his hands still lingering behind her neck. "I know." He says, his American accent too well versed and accented for someone Russian. "I just needed a moment."

She woke up last night from that dream, knowing it wasn't one. It was a memory.  
Something that belonged to her as much as it didn't now. And she wasn't going to stand it further.

She sips her coffee, waiting for her rendezvous.  
"Bridgette." A too familiar voice says, addressing her code name.  
A bright looking blonde comes walking up to her, as they embrace. "Kelly!" She says, a farce only they know. "Sit, oh my God."  
The thing about Grenadine is that she was never good at her tells. Had she not been married off to a higher-up, or rather eloped and formerly exiled with a large price on her head that dissuaded as the KGB & HYDRA dissolved, she would have been killed at the Academy.  
They'd done this before, every sentence a code. "So tell me about Australia! How's Josh?", a slash appearing in her head "Still alive, I see."  
"Well, it was gorgeous, I almost didn't want to leave! And were still in love, of course doll."/"Better alive than half dead at the Academy." She smirks cockily, the last part, without hidden meaning.  
Natasha let's out the tiniest of her true smile, as she smooths back into character.  
"I got you that doll you said you wanted, can't believe you'd ask for a kangaroo, made me look like such a tourist, Kelly!"/"Intel was hard to come by. Why do you want to go back?"  
"I'm sentimental." She gives her best bubble filled laugh.  
Grenadine giggles with her, her eyes calling bullshit.  
"I still don't know why you didn't ask me sooner, Josh has been there before."/"What do you want in that Hell that we both didn't see."  
Natasha sips her coffee. "It was before you met him!"/"It happened after you left."  
Grenadine brings out a small blue gift bag, a plush kangaroo inside.  
"You're too good to me, Bridgette. Thank You."  
Grenadine almost too fakily shines. "Anything for you, big sis." She'd always called her that. Сестра.  
Natasha never felt she deserved it. "We gotta do this again sometime, damn college orientation."  
"You call me anytime sweetie, since the dollar's gone down, my currency is great here."/"Anytime. The price on my head is low. I can do this for a while."  
They embraced, a small part of it, they meant.

As Natasha left a good tip on the table, bag in her hand, her neck began to tingle again.  
No more phantom touches.

//////

She got to her hotel room, shedding everything carefully as she undressed, the wig coming off first. "Can't understand how people actually talk like that." She mutters.  
Takes off the shoes, before she gently takes off the gun garter she'd had on underneath the schoolgirl skirt.  
Turned her attention back to the bag, the kangaroo happily staring back at her.  
"Sorry about this." She said, unsheathing a knife to open the doll.  
She made a small incision, stuffing coming out before she found what she needed. A small thumb drive.

Natasha walked to the bed, sitting as she inserted the stick in.  
The file load page began to run, as PDF files came up.  
The all too familiar Cyrillic seamed effortlessly in through her head, reading the dossier.  
"Mission Report: February 21st  
20th joint mission between HYDRA and affiliate, RED ROOM (see A-5512).  
Codename WIDOW from RED ROOM and HYDRA operative, AMERICAN, successful." She read the rest carefully, trying to remember it.  
A small chill goes up her spine as she recalls it, but the parts where she would required assistance, just....gone. A skip she can't ignore, as if time jumped over and over.  
She minimized the first, opening the next. "Mission Report: (NOTE FROM KARPOV- INFORMATION ABSTRACTED FROM RED ROOM FILES)  
Objective: Eliminate Grey Fletcher, ambassador to Lithuania.  
Status: SUCCESSFUL. Joint mission between WIDOW and AMERICAN-"  
She minimizes the next, unintentionally repeating this process with increasing frustration.  
Before she reaches one more file, this one different. This file is photocopied, not saved to a hard drive, which means Gren had to have paid someone handsomely.  
On faded manilla envelope, a report from Ivan. "It is with this official notice that any and all involvement from the Red Room to HYDRA is ceased immediately. Not only did you cost valuable expenses with a full memory wipe, but irreconcilable damage. I should have known better than to trust your pet project, Karpov. You should have left him in the ocean."

She stared at that last sentence, something clicking but not enough to stir. She looks down, trying to reach it, knowing it won't work.  
Curses in Russia out loud as she shuts the computer.  
As much as it confirmed something, it made up for it with more questions. Who was "The American"? Why did that last sentence sound as familiar as it made her simultaneously angry at the wording?

Natasha stood up, facing the window.  
She would have to do the one thing she knew was too risky to do. Go back home. Which was a stupid idea.  
But then again, since when has her life not been made of stupid plans.

It began to rain outside in Paris, the Eiffel Tower covered in a mist.  
Natasha held her chest unconsciously, as her heart hurt. For no reason that she can remember.


	3. Chapter 3

She walks down the alley, her boots stepping on a puddle, barely a ripple skims across the surface.  
She's been trained to keep her feet as light as her body. Be like marble.

She continues walking down, her red hair the only thing that expells light in the darkness.

Be light when needed.

She turns, catching the arm of the assailant that's been trailing her for the past 5 minutes.  
Twists it as he yells, sliding under him as she flips him onto his back.  
He gets up dazed, grabbing the batons he has on his sides.

And be heavy when chipped

She dodges both effortlessly as he swings with no finesse, hitting his side as she knees his crotch, grabbing one of the batons as he doubles over, her elbow plunging into his back.  
He drops the other baton as he bends over, she picks it up and looks at it. "Whoever sent you either is an idiot, or an amateur." Natasha throws both behind them, into the light.  
The man is breathing hard as he catches his breath, still on his knees.  
"So, who sent you."  
He spits out blood, as he swallows to speak. "I was just told to tail you. I swear."  
"By who." She said, stance still ready; her instinct worried that he had something hidden in his palm.  
"Some guy a few blocks back. He just wanted to score. That's fucking all."  
She picked him up by his collar. "I don't believe you." Natasha finally got to see his face, a young kid no older than 20.  
"I'm telling you the truth!! No woman comes around these parts, he thought it'd be an easier score!"  
She let him down, letting herself relax in the smallest of ways. Which was sooner replaced by disgust. "Get a new hobby, kid."  
She continued walking, the boy quickly running out of the alley.

Exhaled softly, her breath letting out the slightest quiver.  
The thing about marble the one fault, is that you will never see it's cracks. The one hidden deep inside the block, where the densest layer lies.  
So when it does chip, you'll never know if the whole section will crumble.

Natasha continues down the alley, taking one more quick glance behind and above to make sure there were no tails.  
The coast remaining dark, she turned into a more hidden alleyway, lit only by a single light near the door.  
She moved a stone in the wall next to the door, revealing a keypad. Input the code as the knob clicked, Natasha walking in.

The door led to a small storage room, with a ladder on the ceiling to offer a rooftop getaway, a concealed trapdoor on the bottom for tunnel access.

The first crack, is that she knows this, despite none of them showing. There is no visible ladder, yet she knows which part of the wall makes it drop down.  
There's no hatch, but she knows if you move the window up and to the right, the handle appears on the top right corner wall.  
She knows this, even though she doesn't remember ever stepping foot in here.

The room, for the most part, is covered in a thin layer of dust, the same gut instinct saying that this was a safe house.  
She looked around, seeing a small assortment of guns, clothes and a table with documents on it.  
Natasha walked over to the rack with the guns, and ran her finger along the shelf.  
The duct stopped in a few places, as if someone had taken items.

A part of her became more alert, listening for any sounds.  
....Nothing, practicality saying whoever did this, did it a little while ago.  
She made her way to the desk, where 2 bootprints underneath the table were visible through the dust. They dusted all of the other tracks, except for this one, whoever did it, in a rush.  
Some documents taken once again, their shadows visible as well.  
There was someone else, her mind says. Someone else shared the safe house.

She stayed in place for a while, searching her mind, before something clicked.  
Almost unconsciously, she walked back to the gunrack, taking off a small handgun from the rack, and taking out the ammo, a small piece of paper falling into her hands.  
"Yugoslavia" written into the paper, along with latitude/longitude coordinates.  
She took the note and stowed it into her pocket, before making her way into the tunnel access.

The thing about marble is it doesn't show it's cracks.  
And the second crack was that she was missing something.  
The throughout the entirety of the fight with the teenage punk, she kept hearing someone's voice in Russian, giving criticism as the Red Room techniques came back to her mind.  
She kept remembering sparring, the figure a shadowy blur in her mind, like a moving inkspot.

Natasha made her way back to the bike, starting it.

No one knows her cracks. Except, one person.  
And if no one is going to tell her, she's going to damn well find out.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art for this chapter and Chapter 2 from Miranda Leiggi can be found here :)  
> http://mirandaleiggi.tumblr.com/post/158685223302/this-is-for-the-bucky-nat-minibang-i-tried-to

She walks into the house, broken down and long abandoned.

The boards creak underneath her boots as she walks in, foliage from the trees and ground swept in by the wind.  
Swears she feels it as she walks in, the wind pushing her further. Quickly dismisses it as she looks around for any alarms.

The cabin is small, enough to only fit a bed, a modest stovetop, a large cabinet and a fireplace.  
The ceiling was still sturdy, the whole room smelling of pine from the tree it was made of.  
Natasha's smelt it all her life but something about now made her head hurt.  
She walked further in carefully, examining the fireplace; ashes long burnt out, with no evidence of anyone having been here in months, if not years.

The bed is covered in dust and some leaves, a window having been broken.  
The cabin is far enough from the town, but not far enough that some random kid couldn't have walked up here and wrecked in on some dare-

"[You dare me?]"  
"[There's no way you can make American flapjacks with what you have there.]"  
He smirks. "[You underestimate me.]"

She blinks away the memory/dream/hallucination, whatever it's been.  
Natasha steps into the center of the room, trying to find something, though she isn't sure yet what.  
The snow covered forest makes it's usual crisp silence, before she stops, looking at the large dresser beside the bed.  
She walks toward it, opening it to reveal 3 bare and dust covered shelves.

"3 2 1 2 2." The numbers fall out of her mouth in a whisper. She pockets the note in her hand, grasping the ledge of the third shelf lightly, moving it forward, before doing the same for the second, first and back to the second.  
A small, barely audible click came, as a small pocket on the right hand side of the dresser fell open.

Natasha's breath caught for a moment, her hand unconsciously going to the space.  
Inside was a small manilla dossier, though it felt heavy.  
She look hastily but carefully out the window before sitting on the bed, holding it in her hands.  
She shook out the contents carefully, though for some reason, she knew what was going to come out.

3 file papers stapled together, a larger size envelope and a folded note.  
A small white card fell out as well, the only thing she hadn't expected. Her handwriting in black ink wrote "In case of emergency."

For a year, she had wondered. Thought that the memories were some SHIELD malfunction during the encounter with Leo Nobokov.  
The almost derezzed dreams, memories and smells that had been haunting her ever since.

She hesitated briefly, her mind telling her there was still an option. She could still put everything back, think about it. Burn it. Forget about it.  
Her heart and gut however, only said one thing.

Her hand steady but breathing still not entirely settled, she opened the folded note.  
In familiar Cyrillic handwriting, it simply read "Talia, Avengers business. My turn not to wake you." A long dried daisy head falling out.  
A memory quickly passes, waking up in a bed that smells too familiar, as she smiles reading the note.

She picks up the papers, controlling her breaths further.  
It was a mission report, from the Project X files, dated ___.  
"Report on Case 62557: Insubordination found against Winter Soldier.  
Affair and liaisons with Romanova,Natalia, Red Room trainee discovered by Alexei. Possible explanation for Winter Soldier's sudden erratic behaviour (see Case Z-999; paragraph 1).  
ACTION TAKEN: Disciplinary; mind-wipe and immediate return to cryogenic chamber until further/thorough memory purge can be made.  
Romanova,Natalia to be taken back to Moscow Red Room facility for disciplinary measures.  
SIGNED BY: Ivan Petrov"

The last article was the envelope, a folded newspaper clipping "SCANDAL: FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE?  
Former KGB-defects, Natasha Romanoff, and ex-American hero, Bucky Barnes, seen holding hands in Central Park  
"A close source to the Avengers facility states 'Natasha and Bucky have been going out for quite some time, absolute love birds'. Grenadine Smith, former secretary to Tony Stark states 'possible trouble for Avengers facility.'" The article cuts off.

Her headache suddenly crescended, wincing her eyes as a small flood of memories came through.  
A shared motel bed in Krakow, James at the edge of the bed, trying to quietly get dressed.  
"Where do you think you're going?"-  
-A ship, getting ready for the mission. He gets off the bed, suddenly kissing her as if he'never see her again. She pulls away after he does, putting her hand to his face with a slight worry. "Hey now loverboy, we don't have all day."  
"I know." He says, inexplicable sadness and gratuity in his eyes. "I just needed a moment-"  
-She sees him in the tube, anger, resentment and sadness, all at once coming to her. "What did they do to you-"  
-Natasha watches him on the monitor, the SHIELD agents leaving. "What're we going to do with you, moya dusha?"-  
-they're laying in bed, as she touches his face, his gaze not even in the room. "Where are you? You're a million miles away."  
"I know-"  
-she's in a living room, as she feels his lips kiss her neck softly, the nightmare still fresh in her mind. "You're here." He moves his hands to hers, waiting for her permission to hold her hands. "....You're here."

The smell of fresh snow and pines comes back to her slowly, as if she was underwater.  
The living room come back into clear view slowly, the letters holding more meaning.  
It was a cache.

She kept it, in case of emergency.  
She kept this one from James, in case of absolute emergency.

A rush of guilt came to her, as the pieces began to fit.  
Moscow, the first run-in with the Black Room girls in DC.  
Natasha looked down to where the bullet wound once was.

Being found by Ivan.

He'd been watching her. Following her.  
There were still pieces she couldn't reach, frustration stached in the back of her mind, but she remembered enough.  
Pieces of the Red Room, Brooklyn and others. They loved each other.  
She closes he eyes again, trying to recall anything else. But it's just darkness, that all too familiar itch still in the back of her head. It's not all there, she's still missing things.

She tucks everything back in the dossier, including the card left for herself.  
Puts it back into the cabinet, closing up the hidden door, as she walks out.

She remembers enough. And that's more than enough to go on.


	5. Chapter 5

The door clicks as it opens to the dark apartment.

Logan sighs, tossing his jacket onto the armchair.  
It's been a long fucking day. Goes to the fridge to grab a beer.  
SHIELD's up his ass and he wants none of it, the mission he went on for a friend yielded nothing but a dead end and his colleagues are somehow ending up on the news, Natasha on the forefront.  
Every other day, CNN is trying to ask him for an interview, and every other day they do, he tells them to go fuck themselves.  
He stands near the table, unopened beer in hand as he sighs.

And now, this.

"Natasha, I don't know why you bother hiding. I smelled you since before I walked in here."  
She comes out of the shadows, a part of her in the moonlight.  
"Good to see that you're still sharp."  
"Always am. What're you doing here?"  
Confusion and anger come off her body. "....Logan, you wouldn't lie to me."  
"No, of course not. What're you talking about?"  
She tosses a dossier to the side, thudding softly on the chair.  
He picks it up, opening the manilla folder. And mentally says "Shit." It's a mission report of her and the kid.  
He stays quiet for a moment, taking in both sides. He wonders the repercussions of both, and keeps seeing Barnes face in the emergency room that night. Like the whole world just collapsed.  
"....This is a mission repo-"  
"Logan." Her voice is stern. She doesn't want the bullshit reply.  
He pauses again before he breathes in deeply, feeling like an ass. "......That kid loves you more than air. If the world was exploding and he had the choice of leaving or looking into your eyes one more time, he'd choose the last one."  
More silence.  
He wanted nothing more than to grab the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, but the betrayal still wouldn't depart in the nicotine filled smoke, so he left it in.  
"A few years ago, there was a mission. No one told me much, just that someone from them Russian days went rogue, kidnapped and brainwashed you. Usual shit for us. Kid went off, did everything he could." Chuckled darkly as he remembered. "I don't think Murdock will forgive him for it."  
Logan continued. "It led to Arlington. He shot the bastard who did it, and went to you." He wanted that smoke more than ever now. "You didn't remember him, Nat. After we took you to SHIELD, they told us whatever the motherfucker did, in addition to the conditioning, he removed any memory associated with the kid from you. Every day that you knew him, and...your relationship, they were just poof, gone." He smells the slightest hint of sadness off her, and from her heartbeat, the amount she's trying to suppress it. "Kid felt responsible. We all talked to him, tried to talk him into what the doctors said, that they could try to reattach the memories. Downside was that they didn't know how much more they'd have to play around in your head to get them back. He got into a fight with Cap about it, stormed out.  
"After that, he told the doctors no and made us all swear to the damn grave that we wouldn't tell you. That for all extents and purposes, he didn't exist. Told SHIELD to clean any evidence. He cleaned out everything from the place you guys had."  
Natasha remained standing, her fists slightly clenched. ".....And that's everything."  
".....Yeah, Nat. That's everything."  
".....Why did you agree?" She asked.  
He sighed, wondering that. "....Because. Everything that kid does, is for you."  
She paused, taking it all in. "Thank You." She said, before walking out. Logan grabbed her hand, "Hey."  
Natasha looked toward the door. "Let go of me, Logan."  
"You ain't leaving that quick, doll."  
"Let go."  
"I'll let you go when you tell me how're you doing."  
She twists as Logan carefully counter-acts, as they spar almost quietly, the moonlight the only witness as she took her anger out and him the guilt.

She ultimately wins, of course, she's always won. And, he thinks, maybe this is why she's taking this harder.  
She pants, her legs in a lock around him as he lays subdued. "You good?"  
She looks at him, anger and disappointment dripping off her scent. "Yeah."  
"Liar."  
She gets off him and begins to walk away, as he stands up from the gravel coated ground.  
"He did it to protect you."  
She continues walking.  
"Kid's still crazy for you. He's gone off SHIELD's radar a few times, just to act as back-up. That's how you got out of DC. I've been watching the news."  
She stopped, the wind blowing her hair, and scent toward him.  
"You're good Tasha. But you can't deny that there was someone there. There ain't no such things as coincidence and saving graces for us."  
She pauses, for longer than a few moments.  
"....Thank You Logan." She finally says.  
He grunts, walking back toward the apartment.

Logan closes the door, the bruises healing.  
He knows, better than anyone, you do fucked up things for the people you love. In this business, it's a bad thing.  
He stares at the beer on the counter, before taking out a glass and pouring whiskey instead.  
The scent of Barnes that night was so overwhelming, he had to leave. Sadness and pain, like rain and gasoline. It's the scent of someone who would do anything. Even dig a hole and lie in it, just to make sure someone else could live.  
He drank the tumbler in one go.  
Even if it meant you'd never see the sun.


	6. Chapter 6

She stared out into the Brooklyn skyline.

"From far away."  
DC, the past few weeks.  
"I've been watching you since Prague."  
The small glances he would take at her, the ones she didn't pay attention to, due to everything.  
"I don't believe in two coincidences."

Since she left Logan's, everything had begun clicking.

"Stay warm."

She knows, but she still can't remember. Like there's a wall barring her memories and what she knows.  
She knows now that it's been him. All along, the close saves, the near miraculous shots. It's all been him.

"You always did impress me."

Things have been leaking out, random moments that feel like they belong to someone else, but not everything. And it bothers her, more than anything.

"I could take you anywhere, you know."

Paris in the rain, Brooklyn at night.

"We could- you could go away for a while."

The feel of a cheap motel bed against her body as someone embraces her.

"The world hasn't been kind to you."

She looks out into the Brooklyn skyline, and stares at one of the balconies of a motel.  
James steps out, wearing sweatpants and a tee, holding a glass of vodka in one hand, and a piece of paper in the other.

She feels her heart flutter, and now realizes it's felt like that every time she's seen him, the annoyance of why, something that was beyond her.

Natasha gets out her small SHIELD binoculars, turning on the audio receiver as well.  
The paper is bent toward him so she can only make out a few words "business, didn't want to wake you."  
Her breath stops for a moment, as she realizes it's her handwriting. She pans up to him, suppressing her hands from shaking.  
He looks like the world's ended. He drinks from the glass as he looks at it again, before putting the paper away in his pants pocket.  
He pinches the bridge of his nose, as she barely hears him sigh, the focus also picking up white noise.  
"Get yourself together. She wouldn't want this." He says. He looks out into the distance, and stops. He turns her way, feeling someone watching him. But she's too well hidden, he would never see her.  
He turns, his face slightly confused. He sighs again, deeper this time, before walking back inside.

She puts away the binoculars and her heart drops.  
Natasha gets up, and sighs. She still doesn't remember, not everything. But enough to know it's real. Enough to know that the dreams she's been having are memories, and the person below, the idiot who thinks she needs protection from him, is real.  
Feels words slip from her lips with a familiarity, "What're we going to do with you, milli moy?"

Takes one more look before she begins to pack up, leaving Brooklyn.

Natasha's returning to the world. But at least there isn't two anymore.  
At least she's that much closer.

At least it's real, as she smiles sadly.


End file.
